Design engineers, manufacturers, and parts suppliers often rely on parts catalog systems to facilitate research and development, repair, and/or parts supplying. Such parts catalog systems may include a computer-based search engine for locating, and/or retrieving hardware items (i.e., “parts”) from one or more databases (i.e. “catalogs”). The benefits of a parts catalog system to a user may be measured in the speed, accuracy, and overall effectiveness in allowing users to search for and/or retrieve data about hardware items. That is, the more effective a parts catalog system is, the better a user's products and/or service will be, and the faster they may be able to develop products and/or provide services.
The effectiveness of a parts catalog system often depends, at least in part, on the intuitiveness with which a system display may be laid out and ease with which a user may discern how to navigate through the system and make use of its features. In order to improve the visual guidance provided by parts catalog systems, some parts catalog systems have included a graphical user interface (GUI). GUIs are often configured to display graphical representations of hardware items stored in the catalog. Being able to visualize an image of a retrieved part can facilitate navigation and overall usage of the system because, among other reasons, a user can often readily discern from the image whether the retrieved part is the part that they are looking for or if it otherwise suits their needs.
Systems have been also been developed that not only display graphical representations of cataloged hardware items, but also enable searching for hardware items in a parts catalog by inputting values for attributes of the hardware items. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,647,305 to Bigelow (“the '305 patent”) discloses a system configured to enable a user to specify attributes of a bolt in order to find a desired type and size bolt. The '305 patent discloses a graphical user interface configured to display a graphical representation of the bolt and provide a number of input fields for inputting the desired attributes for the bolt.
While the system of the '305 patent may provide a platform for searching for and retrieving data for cataloged hardware items, and provides a graphical representation of the hardware items along with input fields for inputting desired attributes for the items, improvements could be made to the system. For example, although input fields are provided along with the graphical representation, the placement of the input fields are displayed in a location substantially separate from the graphical representation. This layout provides no visual connection between an attribute value being inputted and the portion of the hardware item to which it refers. For example, the system of the '305 patent provides several choices for various size parameters of the displayed bolt. However, there is no visual correlation between, for example, the length parameter selection boxes and the length portion of the graphical representation of the bolt. Improvements could be made to this layout which may facilitate navigation and use, especially when dealing with complicated parts for which data for many attributes is listed.
The present disclosure is directed toward one or more improvements in existing parts catalog systems.